His Constant Companion: The Survivor
by Vilinye
Summary: In "Rose," Clive told Rose that the Doctor's constant companion was death. What if it really was? Death from The Book Thief describes his interactions with the Nineth Doctor.  Ten and Eleven will come later
1. Skyless

His Constant Companion

he has one constant companion: death.

~Clive, "Rose"

Skyless

There is no sky on the day I come for his soul. And when you've been on this job as long as I have, you need any distraction you can get; the colors of the sky generally do the trick. I've seen a million billion skies on countless planets, but I have never seen anything like the end of the Time War. Not just the Daleks and the Time Lords, but the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Skaro Degradations and more, all trapped in Time forever.

Across the universe, my load is piling up, but I wait a moment out of respect. Respect for the civilizations destroyed here. Respect for the soul in my arms. His curly hair and open face only heighten the horror in his eyes. Horror at his own actions.

"It's over," I whisper to him, wanting to comfort him. But golden energy rises from the body on the floor of the TARDIS. His soul jerks with pain and surprise.

A Time Lord regenerates. I nearly drop him then, wanting to rush off to the next disaster. Instead, I kneel on the floor and gently lay him down. The body changes into a thin man with dark, angry eyes.

_The Doctor, _I think. _The Doctor._ We are better acquainted then most Time Lords, he and I. Eight regenerations in less than ten centuries; not to mention all those who died around him.

The man gasps for breath. I stand nearby and whisper to the TARDIS. "Come on, help him." It moans, sharing his pain, but the glow softens. The precise nature of the TARDIS eludes me, but I know it's not just a machine—as I'm not just an abstract figure.

_Come on, Doctor, you can do it! _ You might wonder that Death would want anyone to escape, much less the Doctor, a man dedicated to making things better. But he had saved the world so many times, lessening my load in the process. Every time he snatched someone from my hands, I had to smile.

The glow is fading. I have to move on. The universe is too vast for me to wait with one dry-eyed man watching his home planet destroyed.

But I never really leave anyone. Not even the Doctor.

Especially the Doctor.


	2. Now Forget Me

Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.

~The Book Thief

Chapter One: Now Forget Me

I'd done my fair share of work that day—a gunfight here, a hospital visit there—but nothing out of the ordinary until I stopped by Henrik's department story in London for the soul of a man named Wilson.

Average man, not quite middle-aged, laying on the floor in his office. His plaid shirt was punctured with a half a dozen close-range bullet holes. His mouth sagged in a mild-natured version of shock—anything more would have been out of character. Wilson wasn't the sort of man to be ruffled by anything, not even me.

"Wilson? Wilson, are you there?" I took his soul, letting it dangle from my fingers like a woman's purse. Then I did what I should never do.

I allowed myself to be curious. The voice belonged to a teenage girl. Rose Tyler, her nametag said. The type of person you might pass a dozen times a day, with nothing more on her mind then work, chips and telly. But looking back, I can guess why I waited for her to come down the stairs. There was one thing I didn't know about her then.

***TWO WORDS***

Bad Wolf

Of course I didn't know that then. If I had…I might have fled. Or I might have watched to make sure she'd live. Instead, I watched as she fumbled with the locked door of Wilson's office. "I have the lottery money."

Then the dummies began moving. Dozens of plastic mannequins awkwardly shuffle forward. Their knuckles dropped, revealing gun barrels.

***AN IRONIC THOUGHT***

Handguns

It was only a matter of time before someone took the phrase too literally.

Rose's breath came in fearful gasps. Then someone grabbed her arm. "Run!"

I paused, nearly dropping Wilson. Humans say the eyes are the window to the soul—and I recognized this man's eyes. Only one person could have eyes so dark.

The Doctor.

He pulled Rose after him, jumping into the lift moments before the plastic men reached them. One of them succeeded. Well, his arm did anyway. The doors sliced his arm off like a knife through butter. Rose was chattering like a chipmunk, but the Doctor shook his head.  
"No, they're living plastic. Controlled by a relay device, which might be a problem if I didn't have this." He produced a bomb from one of his pockets. "Might die in the process, but don't worry about me. Don't mention this, or people will die. "

He was too jovial to be serious, but I watched nervously.

"I'm the Doctor, what's your name?"

"Rose," she replied automatically.

"Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!"

She did the smart thing. She obeyed and ran. Out of the store, down the street, and past the blue box on the sidewalk. In the background, flames shot out of Henrik's

It's a shame she learned to disobey. But then again, I'd expect the same from anyone strange enough to travel with him. I can't think of a single companion who always listened.


	3. Settings on the Dryer

To be normal is the ideal aim of the unsuccessful.

Carl Gustav Jung

Chapter Two: Settings on the Dryer

Nothing was happening on earth. Well, sure, there were famines, wars, floods, earthquakes, fires, epidemics, accidents, and political debates, but according to Jackie Tyler, I had nothing to worry about because her daughter Rose Tyler survived.

***Spoiler***

She was right

Albeit a year prematurely

And that's just the first time

But still, she was annoying.

"Traumatized, poor thing—I've been trying to get to someone in authority. She deserves compensation." I took advantage of the mundane banter to investigate the flat. A fairly normal place, nothing to distinguish it from any of a hundred other places I visited.

A nail popped out of the cat door—from the outside. I didn't think cats used tools on this planet, but I squeezed out the door for a closer look. A man in a leather jacket knelt down to look through the flap. At that moment, Rose pushed it open.

"Hello." The man grinned. The Doctor was back.

Rose opened the door, and he walked right past her. "What are you doing here?" He asked.

"I live here. I would be at work, but _somebody_ blew up my job."

"Is someone here, love?" Jackie called.

"He's with the papers, Mum." Rose looked back at the Doctor. "What are you really doing?"

"I'm trying to track down that arm." He flipped through a tabloid on the table. "Oh, that's never going to work out. Ah!—there's that arm." He took it and held it up to his neck. "Agg, it's choking me."

"You never said your name," Rose remarked. "Doctor…"

Any further remark was cut short when the arm began strangling him. He finally managed to wrench it loose—only for it to attack Rose. After a few moments of tumbling and tugging, the Doctor finally soniced it free. "Well, I'd best be going now." He took the arm and walked out the front door.

Rose ran after him. "Just a moment, that thing tried to kill me twice. I want an explanation."

"What is it with you humans? Think the world revolves around you. It wasn't after you, it was after me. You just happened to get in the way." He stalked off towards a blue police box.

"So, what you're saying is the world revolves around you?"

"Something like that, yes."

"And who are you exactly?"

The Doctor turned and stared at her. "Do you know, like we were saying, about the Earth revolving? It's like when you were a kid, the first time they tell you that the world's turning and you just can't quite believe it because it looks like it's standing still. I can feel it. The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour, and I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go... that's who I am. Now forget me, Rose Tyler. Go home."

Of course she didn't listen. One trait of humans that continues to amaze me over the years is their sheer stubbornness. Sometimes that turns out to their advantage. Then there are other times…well, there's a reason they say "deathly stubborn."


	4. End of Normality

"Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from."

~Jodi Foster

Chapter Three: End of Normality

The explosion of the internet had two effects:

***Smart people got smarter. ***

Dumb people got dumber.

Or more accurately, dumb people formed their own dumb worlds and only came out (far too infrequently) for food and personal hygiene.

I'm still not sure which category to put Rose in. In any case, she found a site with pictures of the Doctor and went to find Clive Finch, the creator of the website. Now, I can undoubtedly classify him as dumb. How he stumbled across that information I'll never know, but he had pictures of _this_ Doctor.

Rose went in to talk with him by herself, while Mickey stayed outside. For all that he thought Rose was being foolish, Mickey was the stupider one. He didn't understand that the moment you involve yourself with the Doctor, you step into a much more dangerous universe, where even the trash bins hold grudges.

The sky was a flat, pale blue, like one streak from a planetary marker. But Mickey was ignoring it, and Rose was too busy to care about the last normal sky she would see for a long time. Instead, he touched the lid of the trash bin.

Great green strings stretched from each of Mickey's fingers, resembling taffy or gum, but strong enough to whip the boy over the bin and inside. It burped (and trust me, I've seen stranger things than burping trash bin. Why, one Tertiun sofa …) and spit out a copy.

At that moment, Rose came out. She wasn't even fazed by Mickey's hyper two-year-old act as they went out for pizza.

***A Confession***

I'm bad at telling stories.

I tend to skip to the parts that involve me

This is one of those times.

The Doctor sent a cork right through Mickey's forehead, who spit it out and smiled. "Don't think that's going to stop me, Sweetheart-Babe-Honey!" After a failed decapitation—failed in the sense that it didn't kill him—Mickey's hands turned into big plastic spatulas and he stormed through the restaurant.

Everyone fled, and the Doctor ran into the alley, where the TARDIS was waiting. Rose ran in after him, saw the inside and ran out again. She walked around the outside, touching the walls before reentering. She had one thing to say:

"It's bigger on the inside!"

"Yes. It's called the TARDIS. It's alien." _IT?_ I could feel the TARDIS protesting, but the Doctor only has two hearts. Not two mouths. "And so am I."

Rose put her hand over her lips to stifle a sob.

"A bit too much for you?"

"No, not that—it's Mickey, that thing wasn't Mickey. What have they done to him? Is he dead?"

"Maybe?"

"I have to track down the Nestene Consciousness, and this—" He pointed to the fake head on the TARDIS console. "Should help. "

The TARDIS ground to a halt. Rose opened the door and looked out at the River Thames. "So it's bigger on the inside—and it moves."

"Yes, it does that."

She jumped to another question. "If you're an alien, why does it sound like you're from the north?"

"Lots of planets have a north!" He turned and paced. "We need the transmitter for the Nestene Consciousness. Otherwise, all the plastic will start coming to life. "

"What would it look like?"

"Something big and round, powerful enough to emit a signal through all of London."

"Big and round?" Rose smiled. I followed her line of vision –the London Eye.

"Yes, yes."

"Big and round," she repeated.

At that moment, I knew she'd be traveling with him. Oh, humans can say whatever they like about destiny and free will—it's much more complicated than that, but there are also patterns.

***The Doctor's Pattern***  
1. Saves someone

2. Said someone notices something/does something that saves his life

3. Said someone travels with the Doctor.

The Doctor turned around and looked behind him. "Oh! Fantastic!" Excited, he grabbed Rose's hand and ran across the bridge. After engaging in some more meant-to-be-ignored (in Rose's mind, not his) commands, they snuck into a base beneath the Eye.

"I seek an audience with the Nestene Consciousness," The Doctor commanded.

But Rose saw something more important. "Mickey!" She ran over to him, hugging him tightly. "I thought you were dead."

"T-that thing, it talks!" Mickey stammered, pointing to a massive vat of orange goo. In my experience, any pile of goo that can't fit in a suitcase is probably trying to kill you.

"What are you doing here? This planet is just starting. These stupid little people have only just learned how to walk but they're capable of so much more. I'm asking you, on their behalf, please just go." The Doctor commanded.

Suddenly, two Autons grabbed him from behind. One pulled a vial of anti-plastic from his pocket. The Consciousness hissed and boiled in response.

"Just an insurance policy. I wasn't going to actually use it."

"You are not from this world, Time Lord. Your people started that war, destroyed our planets. It is all your fault!" A bolt of jagged lightening shot from the Consciousness, powering the transmission.

"That's not true! I should know. I was there. I fought in the war! It wasn't my fault." The Doctor protested. "I couldn't save your world! I couldn't save any of them!"

"It's all going to come to life. I have to call Mum," Rose pulled out her phone. "Mum, where are you? Listen, don't go out."

"What are you talking about? I was just down at the police station, checking out forms. You can get compensation, I said so."

"Mum, just go home. It's not safe, there's these things—" Rose stammered.

"I'm sorry, you're breaking up. I'm just going to go pick up a few things down at the shops. See you later."

I move fast. I can be anywhere in less time than it takes to say goodbye. So I was there when the mannequins came to life—faceless forms in jeans, bridal gowns, or underwear smashing through windows. When their fingers dropped, revealing handguns. Amidst all the screaming and confusion, I sensed one mind filled with amazement: Clive Finch.

_It's all real. It's really happening._

At least he died happy. I took his soul carefully between my fingers, trying to focus on the dense, black sky as the Autons continued shooting. Even though I wasn't sure if he could hear me, I whispered an apology. _You were right about the Doctor and me. _ _I'm sorry for being his companion. _ But the other half of the truth slipped out _But, oh, the things I see. He's one of the stories that haunt me, because he's so close to humanity, and yet so far away._

Another blast filled the air. Off to one side, I could see Jackie Taylor huddling behind a car as three Autons in wedding apparel approached. If she was going to be part of my load tonight, I wanted a quick look at the Doctor first. For all his bluster and noise sometimes, at least his blood wasn't acid and sandpaper.

Back at the Nestene's lair, two Autons were pushing the Doctor towards the edge of the platform. No pleading, no blubbering on his part, but out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Rose Tyler pick up an axe. Ignoring Mickey's blubbering, she freed one of the chains from the wall, grabbed it, and swung down towards the Doctor.

She collided with the Auton who held the anti-plastic, knocking it into the vat of the Nestene Consciousness. As she came to a stop on the platform, the Doctor kicked the other one over the edge as well. The Consciousness screamed, raging with anger as the base began to burn. Quickly, the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey fled into the TARDIS.

When the TARDIS materialized in the Powell Estates, Mickey stumbled out, eyes wide with shock. "That thing…it's bigger on the inside."

Rose lingered a moment, quickly answering a phone call from her mum—don't go out, it's not safe (oh, the irony). "I guess I better get on home."

"If that's what you really want," The Doctor replied. "Unless—would you like to travel with me?"

"What?" Rose repeated.

"You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep or you could go… anywhere."

"Is it always this dangerous?" Rose asked.

"Yep."

Mickey wrapped his arms around her knees. Talk about a clingy boyfriend!

"I can't. There's work and Mum and someone's gotta look after this useless bloke."

"Well." He shut the door and the TARDIS dematerialized.

I couldn't stay long. I had my job to do, but just as I was about to leave for an epidemic on Alres, I heard a familiar noise. _vworp…vworp…_

The TARDIS materialized, and the Doctor poked his skinny face out of it. "Did I mention it also travels in time?"

Rose stared at him for a moment. Then she kissed Mickey. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Exactly." She turned away and ran into the TARDIS.

Rose had no idea what she was in for.


End file.
